Eccentric encounters

One of the seasoned staff at Mayuc, Santiago is the instructor on my 6-person raft, for my three days on the Río Apurímac. He's a very cheerful guy, always cracking jokes and telling freaky stories. He's also a strict instructor, and (in our opinion) probably the best guide on the trip. We feel safe and lucky to have him. He also speaks excellent English, as well as a few token words of Hebrew (inevitable, given the number of Israelis around!).

Stephan's a law graduate from Quebec, Canada, who's come down to Cusco to do some voluntary legal work with Hampy for a few months. As well as being a friendly guy, he's also an interesting conversationalist, and a keen and adventurous hiker. He has, on occasion, been known to drink more than he can handle, and to suffer the consequences. But generally speaking, he's pretty reliable and responsible.

Ashley is a Canadian girl with a marketing background, who's here in Cusco for about 2 months, helping Hampy with various aspects of their publicity. I first met Ashley about 2 weeks ago, on the Chocco and Hampy tour, and from now on I'm going to be working pretty closely with her on the new Hampy web site. She has a dry but witty sense of humour, and she can sure as hell let her hair down and party, when the occasion calls for it.

Carlos Joel Delgado Pizarro is a young guy studying computer science at university, here in Cusco. Carlos was told about me (and vice versa) by — who else — the king of Linux and of Linux-folk here in Peru: my friend Antonio Ognio (from Lima). I met with Carlos today at my host family's house, and we had a good old chat about Linux, open-source, programming, the state of IT and of open-source in Peru, and even Drupal (a bit). Plus, I managed to talk with him in Spanish the whole time! Not bad, especially considering that I really wasn't feeling too good today (more food poisoning). Great guy, and a many with many questions.

Jorge is the director of Hampy, an organisation (that I got introduced to today) that helps disadvantaged kids in the village of Chocco, near Cusco. Jorge's been working in Lima for the past few years, with the US government's Peace Corps; but now he's back with Hampy. He's a friendly and very passionate guy, and I'm glad that I'll be able to help him out a bit, over the next few weeks.

Wil's been studying at Amigos with me (but not in my class) for the past two weeks; and he's also involved with the volunteer group Hampy, that I went on a little tour with today. Wil's an American from Upstate New York, and he's been travelling in South America for quite a while already, so his Spanish is quite good. He's got a girlfriend from Chile, and from the sound of things, their relationship is pretty serious. He's a quiet guy, but he's very genuine, and he's doing great work with the kids at Hampy, helping them work out how to find employment.

Jesus is the founder and the director of Amigos, and he's a very complicated guy. He has enormous talent, diligence, and ambition; yet he has many fears, doubts, and dilemnas to contend with. He genuinely wants to help and to serve the kids that he works with; yet he also indulges in the luxuries of high-class Cusco that most locals cannot enjoy. And he's technically the boss, above and in charge of everyone around him; yet the people around him are his best friends, closer than his family, and he hangs out with them and parties with them, and he treats and respects all as his equals.

Louis is a French computer science student, who's on an overseas "work placement" of sorts (the voluntary sort) at Amigos. His main task at Amigos is to build them a new web site, which he's doing using the very cool system Ruby on Rails. He hasn't got much experience with web design or development, and he hasn't been given many resources (he has his own laptop, but no Internet at Amigos!); but he's done a good job so far. He's also a juggler, a fearless drinker, and a great part of the Amigos team.

Juan Carlos is a young guy who really has a right to be proud of himself. He's the "director of activities" — basically the second-in-command — at Amigos. He was one of the first kids who went through the community English-learning program, which the school runs for disadvantaged kids in the local area. Now, he's a fluent English-speaker, he's an important part of the school's administration, and he's a great guy and a friend to everyone around him.

Of all the faces from back home, Mitchell's was about the last I expected to see. I've known Mitchell for literally my entire life: he was born one day before me, in the hospital bed next to mine. And tonight, 21 years later, I bumped into him in the bar at Loki, here in Cusco. Actually, it was he that recognised me. Anyway, he's almost at the end of his trip: he's already been here for a while, and he was in Europe and North America for a while too; and soon he's going back home.